Fearless Writing Challenge; Day 74: On a Tuscan Hilltop

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

After the sad days spent at Lake Como we headed to Florence and then the hill towns of Tuscany.

The days are a blur now, but I recall staying at an “agriturismo” outside of Florence. It was so far out that I think we took a taxi. But it was beautiful and peaceful and I could have been perfectly content living there.

In fact, when #1 went museum hopping in Florence one day, I opted to stay behind. I dozed, read, and wrote. It was lovely. There were olive trees and lemon trees and verdant hillsides all around us.

We also stayed in Sienna and spent an afternoon on the plaza imagining the pounding of hundreds of hooves during the Paleo.

We spent one night in a little Tuscan hill town whose name escapes me right now, but it was perched on a hillside in the most impressive way.

We also stayed in Montepulciano – and that magical Tuscan hill town remains one of my all-time favorite spots. (In fact, I have an unfinished novel set there…)

We stayed at a small pensione run by an adorable older woman. We tried to communicate with her and had a postcard of Boston and tried to explain we lived in Massachusetts, but I’m not sure we were understood. She thought we lived in the highrise pictured on the card.

She made pici – a thick round pasta that was the perfect complement to the fresh tomato sauce she served. We also had an incredible bowl of pasta e fagoli one night.

After we had extended our stay with her (the benefit of having no itinerary) and enjoyed yet another of her dinners, she brought us the tiniest moon-slivers of biscotti served with a small glass of potent, amber vin santo.

It felt like a gift from her to us, and it was the perfect finish to another great meal in what felt like her living room – a small, intimate space with maybe eight tables.

I remember a young couple there one night – Americans – trying to read the menu. We explained to them the pici and they told us they were travelling before starting med school in North Carolina.

We felt so much older than them. Being married and “adults” of 28 or so. #sonaive

This is the only photo I can find (right now) of our trip to Montepulciano, it was my favorite view…